December 2018 - Ronny Allan - Living with Neuroendocrine Cancer

20Dec 2018 by Ronny Allan 7 Comments

Q-Sphera™ – Next Generation Somatostatin Analogue delivery system?

Living with Neuroendocrine Cancer, Technical NETs, Treatment

In my article listing the somatostatin analogues and their drug delivery systems pipeline (click here), there has been a very interesting development in a product called Q-Sphera (was previously known as Q-Octreotide). In a press release, it was announced that an unnamed 'pharma giant' has signed a deal with Midatech Pharma Plc that will see it evaluate the latter’s Q-Sphera drug delivery platform. Later in Feb 2019, the pharma was identified as China Medical System Holdings Limited (based out of Hong Kong). Adding to the excitement behind this development, it was announced in Mar 2019 that the Spanish Government had conditionally approved a €6.6m loan that will be used to help commercialise this flagship drug. Latest update 8th January 2020. Midatech Pharma PLC has hailed the positive results from a…

Neuroendocrine Cancer: a needle in a haystack?

Awareness, Living with Neuroendocrine Cancer, Patient Advocacy, Technical NETs

It's no secret that Neuroendocrine Cancer can be difficult to diagnose. Although earlier diagnosis is improving (as reported in the SEER database report issued in 2017), there is still a lot of ground to cover. There are a number of reasons why these Neoplasms are often difficult to correctly and quickly diagnose including but not limited to: - they grow silently, they often produce vague symptoms which can be mistaken for much more common illnesses, and their complexity is not fully understood. I wanted to cover two different aspects of the problem of finding NETs. Firstly, in finding the primary tumour so that the type of NET can be properly established - this drives the best treatment regime. Secondly in finding all the tumours, as this establishes the correct and…

Neuroendocrine Cancer Clinical Trial – Lutetium-177 OPS-201 (Satoreotide)

Clinical Trials, Technical NETs

What is Lutetium-177 OPS-201? This is a 'next generation' Peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT) or more specifically the radiopharmaceutical that binds to both activated and unactivated somatostatin receptors which are upregulated on these tumours. There is far higher binding via this mechanism than standard octreotate. The technical name of the radiopharmaceutical is Satoreotide tetraxetan lutetium-177 (author's note, I'm guessing but it could be a variant of Lanreotide). It was once named JR11. What's the difference to the current approved therapy? Conventional PRRT (e.g. Lutathera, Lu177 Dotatate) is based on a somatostatin receptor 'agonist' approach, whereas 177Lu Ops 201 Satoreotide is a receptor 'Antagonist'. The differences are quite technical but in the most layman terms , the antagonist has the capability of attaching (binding) to more receptors, including those in a…